When she was around 8, sophomore Onyx Strydom began taking art lessons at her mother’s behest. Little did she know that it was the first step in a path that has led her to having thousands of viewers who follow her art on YouTube.
Over the years, Strydom grew to love art, continuing to teach herself and practicing to further cultivate her skills. Now, Strydom works with all kinds of media, including digital, oil, acrylic and graphite, posting her art on her own YouTube channel, ItsArtSometimes (@itsartsometimes), started in June 2023.
“I thought I could be like one of those cringy animation storytime people like JaidenAnimations or TheOdd1sOut. I was really into that when I was 10, and I thought the clout was cool,” Strydom said.
Her channel boasts 35,000 subscribers as of March and features mostly YouTube shorts. These shorts mainly show snapshots of her process for various pencil drawings and digital artworks. Her most viral post, a colored sketch, racked up a remarkable 344,000 views with comments such as “Wow I love that character design” and “As an artist, AMAZING interpretation.”
To come up with her video ideas, Strydom often uses Pinterest to find inspiration or references for her art. YouTube Studio, a platform that gives creators data on trends, also recommends video ideas that are currently going viral or popular with her intended audience. She tends to target her content to those around her age and younger, hoping to inspire them to explore art.
“I think my community is very active,” Strydom said. “I get fan art and stuff that people draw for me, usually of my profile picture or just recreating what I’ve drawn. It’s not always good, because it’s drawn by little kids, but I think it’s very endearing, and I love them.”
Sometimes, all the numbers and statistics YouTube supplies start to build expectations of how many views she needs to get in order to not regress. The fixation on numbers adds pressure for each video to break through the views of the previous. Strydom remembers that there was a period where she got over 500,000 views every day, but now, she barely breaks 100,000.
“My peak was last year. It was very nerve wracking, because when you’re up, there’s only down to go,” she said. “When you’re at your peak, you can’t really predict what you need to do to stay there.”
Strydom’s current ambitions for her channel are to work on more long form videos, delving into new forms like animations.
Strydom’s future goals for her channel are to reach 100,000 subscribers and to collaborate with creators she looks up to. One of the challenges she faces, especially as her channel continues to grow, is making content for her own pleasure and not focusing too much on what her viewers may want to see.
“I get overly concerned with what the YouTube algorithm wants me to draw instead of focusing on what I want to draw. At the end of the day, I do it for me and for my art. The YouTube part is just a side jig,” she said. “While I’m not currently planning on pursuing art or media as a career option, I am hoping to either minor in some form of art or animation, or keep it as a hobby.”
